EU Opens Up Drug Data Secrets:
via the European Public Sector Information Platform and Reuters:
Europe’s medicines regulator is opening its data vaults to systematic scrutiny in a move that will let independent researchers trawl through millions of pages of clinical trial information.
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Such information is a treasure trove for scientists wanting to test drug company claims and potentially expose product deficiencies.
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giving researchers access to raw data might one day open up new methods for treatment – perhaps using machine learning systems that could marry a patient’s health record directly to data from appropriate clinical trials.
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Europe’s drugs watchdog, however, does not envisage a complete free-for-all for data, which would only be released after the agency has finished reviewing a new drug.
“We don’t want to be blind-sided by studies of poor quality that create a public health scare,” says Eichler. “What the debate now is about is finding the right conditions to minimise the potential for false findings.”